Dhananjay Gadre of the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology just posted a video of the LED hourglass he and Anurag Chugh is working on:

The LEDs are arranged in a circular conical fashion, to mimic the glass parts of a traditional hourglass, giving a 3-Dimensional appearance to the electronic hourglass. The system is equipped with a Z-axis accelerometer that detects the orientation of the hourglass and lights up the LEDs in the upper half, simulating the sand at the beginning of a measurement cycle. Subsequently, the LEDs in the lower half blink and light up in a fashion to simulate falling sand.